PUBLIC LAW 280

Public Law 280, passed on August 15, 1953,
ended federal law enforcement on tribal lands
and brought the tribes of five mandatory
states–California, Minnesota, Nebraska, Oregon,
and Wisconsin–under state civil and
criminal jurisdiction. (Alaska was added later.)
In theory this termination-era legislation was
applied to these states because their state senators
had requested the change and because
tribal leaders had apparently accepted state
control and federal withdrawal. All other states
whose constitutions allowed such action were
given the option to accept jurisdiction over
their reservations. Congressional testimony
reveals two primary justifications for the legislation:
a feeling that a condition of lawlessness
existed on and near reservations and the belief
that tribal peoples should be under the same
laws and law enforcement as the majority population.

Although the federal government traditionally
administered law on Indian reservations,
beginning in 1940 it began to give certain
states partial or total jurisdiction. Among
these states were Kansas and North Dakota
(only on the Devils Lake Sioux Reservation).
Following passage of PL 280 other Great Plains
states attempted to accept some form of jurisdiction
over their reservations. North Dakota
accepted civil jurisdiction over its tribes, dependent
upon tribal consent. Significantly, no
tribe there has consented to state control.
South Dakota attempted to apply the law multiple
times, including unilaterally extending
jurisdiction to its reservations, but, between
court battles and electoral decisions, it has not
been successful in this endeavor.

Both states and tribal peoples immediately
noted problems with the law, problems that
would lead to virtually continuous disputes
both in and outside of courtrooms for the
next four decades as well as jurisdictional uncertainty
between tribal, city, state, and federal
law enforcement agencies. State arguments
against the law were almost universally based
on the problem of increased cost to local and
state governments. Tribal complaints centered
on the fact that the law did not require any
form of tribal consent.

Nebraska, the lone mandatory Great Plains
PL 280 state, experienced such jurisdictional
and law enforcement difficulties. Home to the
Omahas and Winnebagos, neither Nebraska
nor Thurston County (site of the reservations)
hired additional law enforcement officers
to replace departing federal officers,
despite the fact that allotted lands owned by
tribal members were taxed. With diminished
law enforcement, crime rose on the reservations.
In 1957 the state legislature passed a law
known as the Indian Bounty Act, supplying
state funds for counties with heavy tribal populations
and land bases. This act formed the
basis of later tribal complaints that county officials
unjustly arrested inordinate numbers of
Native Americans in order to receive these
funds.

Because of widespread discontent on all
sides, Congress included a consent clause to
pl 280 in the Civil Rights Act of 1968 and also
allowed states to retrocede jurisdiction back to
the federal government. It did not give tribal
peoples in previous PL 280 states power to demand
this retrocession, and the prior consent
clause did not have any bearing on the states
already affected by PL 280. Under this change,
the Omahas and later the Winnebagos successfully
won retrocession. They have since
created tribal courts and police and have completed
cross-deputization and concurrent jurisdiction
agreements with county, state, and
federal authorities.

Charles Vollan
University of Nebraska-Lincoln

Goldberg, Carol. "Public Law 280: The Limits of State
Jurisdiction over Indians." UCLA Law Review 22 (1975):
535–94.

Hansen, Sandra. "Survey of Civil Jurisdiction in
Indian Country." American Indian Law Review 16 (1990):
319–75.